Honeywell Green Boot Camp Helps Drive Sustainability Education Around The World

Seventy Teachers from 12 Countries Receive Scholarships to Five-Day Workshop on Teaching Sustainability and Environmental Concepts

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May 27, 2014, 12:11 ET

MINNEAPOLIS, May 27, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- What do solar cars, energy vampires and wind turbines have in common? They will soon be topics of conversation for 70 educators from 12 countries who won scholarships to Honeywell's (NYSE: HON) award-winning Green Boot Camp, a five-day workshop designed to share best practices for teaching energy, sustainability and environmental concepts to middle school students.

Sponsored by Honeywell, Green Boot Camp will take place June 22-27 at the San Diego
Gas & Electric (SDG&E) Energy Innovation Center in San Diego, a facility that has earned the Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification for its best-in-class sustainable building strategies and practices.

In addition to teachers from the United States and Canada, Green Boot Camp will welcome educators from Australia, Brazil, China, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Romania, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Attendees will gain environmental learning and leadership insights from energy experts representing organizations such as SDG&E, Chicago Botanic Garden, the Solar Rain Bottled Water Company, the California Center for Sustainable Energy and Honeywell.

"Energy sustainability and conservation are among the most pressing issues facing our world today, and it's important to help lay the groundwork for students who will fill the green jobs of the future," said Paul Orzeske, president of Honeywell Building Solutions. "Green Boot Camp aims to provide ideas and insights for teachers to help inspire and inform students to be more sustainably-minded and aware of energy conservation practices."

In addition to introductory sustainability and energy-efficiency lessons, the Green Boot Camp curriculum includes a variety of expert-led activities to show sustainability concepts in action, including building wind turbines, rain barrels and a solar car. Activities also include collecting and analyzing water samples, and using watt meters to measure energy use and identify potential "energy vampires" — appliances and electronics that use electricity even when they are turned off.

Following the hands-on exercises, teachers will convene to discuss how to apply the ideas in their classrooms and within their respective subject areas, a key benefit of the experience according to past Green Boot Camp participant Robert Rand, who now works as a district program facilitator for Minneapolis Public Schools.

"Green Boot Camp provides the rare opportunity and financial means for teachers to come together from around the world and collaborate on important topics in ways otherwise not possible," Rand said. "I've been able to plant the seeds of sustainability in my classroom, which is a direct result of the meaningful activities, lessons and conversations I brought back."

For example, Rand teamed up with another teacher in Minneapolis to create an after-school class that expanded upon the water-testing exercise and concepts he learned at Green Boot Camp. In addition to incorporating water testing, Rand introduced other sustainability-related lessons that met the district's reading and math curriculum requirements, including calculating carbon footprints and introducing a related reading unit.

Now in its sixth year, Green Boot Camp is made possible by a grant from Honeywell Hometown Solutions, Honeywell's corporate citizenship initiative.

See the full list of attendees here.

Honeywell (www.honeywell.com) is a Fortune 100 diversified technology and manufacturing leader, serving customers worldwide with aerospace products and services; control technologies for buildings, homes and industry; turbochargers; and performance materials. Based in Morris Township, N.J., Honeywell's shares are traded on the New York, London, and Chicago Stock Exchanges. For more news and information on Honeywell, please visit www.honeywellnow.com.

Honeywell Hometown Solutions, the company's corporate citizenship initiative, focuses on five areas: Family Safety & Security; Housing & Shelter; Science & Math Education, Humanitarian Relief and Habitat & Conservation. Together with leading public and nonprofit institutions, Honeywell has developed powerful programs to address these needs in the communities it serves. For more information, please go to citizenship.honeywell.com.